Bullied
by muchmadness
Summary: The update of Bullies. If anyone's still into that. If not, it's a DL story about change, set roughly after season three.
1. Chapter 1

**So. Anyone who's still following Bullies, this is a story for you. You don't really have to read the other one, but if you don't, you might think this is a very strange plot.**

**This is not a new story. This is me updating Bullies. And being lazy about it.**

* * *

Danny tiredly made his way home. To sleep. There was no other reason, really. He might as well sell his apartment and just rent a hotel room when he'd been up too long.

He'd racked up hours and hours in overtime pay, too. Mac was probably going to talk to him about that at one point. There had been enough lingering, condescending looks from Mac for Danny to start avoiding him in the halls.

As he shuffled out of the subway station, up into the dark city night, he realized that there were few people he _hadn't _been avoiding lately. He paused briefly on the sidewalk, trying to count the number of actual conversations he'd had lately, conversations with someone who wasn't a nurse, or someone who was actually listening. He could count exactly two in the past three weeks. One with Stella about whether or not she should get regular or decaf coffee, and one with Hawkes about running shoes vs. converse.

There had been a time when Danny had considered himself an interesting person to talk to. Always injecting his opinion into the conversation, wanted or not. Joking around behind turned backs, loud exclamations at various sports wins or losses. He'd been fun once. Exciting.

Now he was a zombie.

As he shoved open the door to his apartment, averting his gaze from the cheerful pictures on the walls, he stumbled vacantly towards his couch and collapsed.

His eyes closed automatically, and he sank into a dreamless sleep instantly.

* * *

Flack whistled cheerfully as he jauntily stepped down the hallway of the crime lab, towards the office near the end of the hall.

"Heeey, Danno, got a good one here," he called out, turning into the empty office with two cluttered desks mashed up against each other, "Man kills himself with a …" Flack looked up, and finally noted the empty room.

He breathed out harshly and turned, tucking the file back under his arm.

"He hasn't been in there in weeks," Hawkes said.

Flack turned to see the young CSI leaning against the wall of the office.

"Avoiding that place, too?" Flack grunted, severely disappointed. He'd been planning on asking Danny out for a beer after work as well. "You know he doesn't sleep in the bed anymore? Says it smells like her and he can't sleep."

Sheldon's eyebrows raised, although he wasn't entirely surprised. "I think after a while he'll just stop going to his apartment."

Flack shook his head and frowned. "It ain't right. He should be … he should …" but Don couldn't come up with anything to suggest. It wasn't as though the situation was common.

Hawkes nodded in agreement to the hanging sentence, as if he was equally confused. He sighed and took the file from under Flack's arm, and flipped it open. "What've we got?"

* * *

Danny woke with an intake of breath.

He hated that brief moment in morning where he'd forget to mourn. Or, for that matter, to be hopeful. That brief second in time where time was just the second he lived in, and there was no future or past, just waking up.

And then he would turn, and see that he was still lying on a couch in the middle of a pile of unwashed, crumpled blankets, and he would feel like crying.

He swallowed the emotions, stood, and walked to his bedroom. He glared at the punching bag that hung from a corner and contemplated where to throw the first punch. The top? No. The gut? No. A little lower.

He took a deep breath, fisted his hand, and rammed it hard into the spot just below the center of the punching bag. Then, filled with a deep, hard fury, he continued to pummel the bag until he was exhausted enough to stumble into the shower and clean himself up.

He bought flowers on the way: daises and daffodils.

When he walked into her room, his weary, monotone face immediately lifted as he smiled lovingly at the woman who could very well have been sleeping. He walked quietly over to her bed, removed the older flowers from the vase, and replaced them.

"Hey, Montana," he said tiredly, and kissed her cheek before resuming his post at her bedside.


	2. Chapter 2

"I never got to tell her I love her," Peter Bell sobbed in the interrogation room. Flack and Mac sat quietly in front of him, attempting to maintain their cool exteriors.

They both knew, at this point, that the blubbering man in front of them, his chubby chin dropping with each of his cries, was not at all capable of having murdered his wife, whose gracefully bent body had been found in a recycling bin outside of an small building in Brooklyn.

"She was my everything," Peter sobbed, "I don't know how I'll live without her." He sniffed loudly, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

Mac watched him quietly for a moment, then reached across the table and rested his hand on Peter's pudgy arm. "You'll hope for the future, Peter. It has to be enough to know that she loved you. I know it's hard to say goodbye, and it will be for some time. But time is what will ultimately help you."

Peter sniffed and nodded, then collapsed into tears again.

As Mac and Don slowly stepped out of the interrogation room, leaving Peter to collect himself, Don took a deep, lung-filling breath.

"Danny's got to move on," he said, his voice tense, almost as though he didn't want the words to be coming out of his mouth.

Mac nodded slowly, pensively. "I hate to admit it, but you're right. It's been two months now, and there's been no change."

"Now I'm not sayin' he should go out and marry some girl and have a dozen kids –"

"No, no, of course not," Mac agreed.

"- But he's got a life, even if she's practically lost hers. He's gotta get back into the world," Flack continued. He held his breath as they rounded the corner, then let it out as he saw that it was empty. Somehow, he didn't want his words spreading through to the ears of his co-workers

"Did you ever get around to taking him out for a beer last week?" Mac asked worriedly.

Flack shook his head. "Poor guy was too tired every time I saw him. When he turned me down I always thought it was for the best; he could finally get some rest."

Mac nodded. "Take him out tonight. He'll be coming in to work in about an hour. Tell him I said he's off for the night."

"For sure," Flack consented.

* * *

"I thought he was gonna say something," Danny grumbled. It seemed that, that night, he'd forgotten his limits with alcohol. Four beers so far, and he was already polishing off a fifth. And only an hour and a half into the night.

"Who?" Flack asked, still working on his first drink.

"Mac," Danny said with distaste.

"What'cha talkin' about?" Flack asked, turning his eyes from the TV screen to Danny.

"He's been tryin' to get me to stop workin' overtime for weeks now," Danny grunted. He remarked how hard it was to vocalize his thoughts after weeks of silence and loneliness.

"Well, in his defense, Danno, you been workin' pretty hard," Don said, turning back to the TV. Suddenly, his phone buzzed on his hip, and he glanced down at the screen. He flipped it open to a text from Angell.

_Carson witness dead. 81__st__ & Madison._

"I gotta make a call," he muttered to Danny, heading to the outside of the bar.

Danny turned back to his drink, already missing the talking. If Linds had been there, he'd have pulled her in for a quick make-out session, glad for the absence of his best friend. He'd feel her warm body up against his, smell the soft scent of her body cream that still lingered on her skin hours after she showered. He missed Lindsay. Plain and simple.

"Where'd your friend go?" A cheerful voice chirped next to him.

He turned to see a young, bright-eyed girl next to him. His eyes immediately traveled to her bright green shirt which bore an simple tree decal. Danny's heart flip-flopped. Lindsay had worn the shirt once. He wracked his brain to remember it, and found himself with an image of her in her blue plaid pajama pants and that green tree shirt, cuddled up on his bed, engrossed in a book.

Blinking himself back to reality, Danny was struck by the realization that he'd been staring at the woman's chest for the past few minutes.

"Um, uh, he went outside to make a call," Danny muttered, and turned back to his drink.

"Well, I wanted to talk to you anyways," the girl grinned, white teeth glittering, and slid onto the stool next to him. "Annie," she said, holding out her hand.

Danny found no response as he shook her hand. Wasn't this supposed to be his forte? Talking to women? He'd considered himself a master in the art not two months into college, upon realizing that a considerable amount of girls had found their way into his dorm room bed. Yet now, he couldn't even muster up a simple way to brush off the sweet young thing on the chair next to him.

He glanced over at her. She used to be his type. In fact, he found himself slipping into old habits and sizing her up. Blonde hair, round, pink lips, nice tits, and he could even get a peek of skin between her jeans and that shirt.

He glanced back up at her mouth and found that she was ordering two shots of tequila.

So after a while he started to talk to her, although he wasn't entirely sure why. He attributed it to horniness, for the most part.

With each shot he downed, he felt the burning liquid set his throat on fire, and willed it to kill him from the inside out.

But it wasn't until he was leaning against the wall of the bar, his hand inching up Annie's shirt, their bodies rubbing in rhythm, that he came to his senses, stumbled away from her, and hailed a cab.

"What are you doing?" Annie spluttered, struggling to right herself off the wall, her balance thrown.

"I'm with someone," Danny said, "I am. She's not … she's not with me, but I'm with her."

"What the fuck are you saying?" Annie shouted as Danny managed to drunkenly sit himself into the cab.

Danny shut the door of the cab, gave his address, and closed his eyes, trying to swallow the taste of Annie away.

* * *

**Just reminding you all – I don't do major angst. So there's no affair going on here. I guess it might be construed as such, but it won't be. Well, you'll see. Fact is, this is a DL story. There's no Danny/OC going on here.**


	3. Chapter 3

It started to rain that night. Hot, fierce, summer rain that stung as it hit Danny's exposed shoulders. He'd come home, stripped to his undershirt and jeans, then left to wander aimlessly.

"Rain walk," he said out loud to the emptied streets. Lindsay had mentioned taking them in Montana after her friends had died. Time to think over her memories, to work out a problem.

And here he was, with some other woman's lipstick on the side of his neck, and the taste of her in his mouth, wishing for his Montana. There was nothing worse, he concluded, to have everything but Lindsay.

He _missed _her.

He'd always selfishly thought that she'd needed him more than he needed her. At the start of their relationship, anyways.

Poor little country girl, alone in the city, and there he was, street-smart, driving her home from work, telling her what places she should avoid and which places were great for a sandwich or a slice of pizza. But slowly he'd come to realize that she was entertaining him, flirting with him, letting him think she needed his help.

Lindsay Monroe was a mountain girl. A survivor. She'd long ago learned how to take care of herself. Maybe there were times when she was a little outnumbered and she needed Danny, but for the most part she was strong as they come.

_She _**is **_as strong as they come, _Danny thought angrily, shaking rainwater from his spiky hair.

The worst part was, when she'd needed Danny to be there, the one time his presence was absolutely, positively needed, he'd been too late. He'd been too slow, too unobservant to see that he could come in handy.

He splashed his way through a puddle, feeling the water soak up through his already-drenched jeans.

"Fuck," he growled, not particularly in response to his jeans, but in general. "Fuck."

* * *

Halfway across the city, nestled warmly in a hospital bed, Lindsay Monroe's eyes flickered open. She made out the explosively bright shapes of the flowers in the vase by her bed: yellows and whites that blended with each other in curvy lines. She sighed, and took in a deep breath, finding herself incredibly tired.

She spotted a dark, leather jacket by the side of her bed, resting next to her pillow, and smelled Danny.

She smiled widely, blinked her eyes shut like a contented cat, and slipped into sleep again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks also to my anonymous reviewers, Rike and m&m. I really appreciate you two taking the time to review!**

**OK, onto the chapter.

* * *

**

When Danny returned home sometime the next morning, shivering and cold, he had three missed calls on his cell phone, and another four on his home phone. After listening for just a moment to the calm, although clearly worried nurse on the phone, he ran back into the cold without bothering to change his clothes, jumped on his bike, and raced to the hospital.

On the way, he happened to glance behind him to see the blinking lights of a police cruiser. A loud "whoop" from the siren had him groaning.

He pulled over quickly and whipped off his helmet.

"I'm a cop, I'm a cop!" he shouted as the officer stepped out of the cruiser.

The officer's hand briefly went to his gun in self-defense, although he hesitated upon hearing the full meaning of Danny's words.

"Sir, we don't allow anyone to slide for going seventy in a thirty-five zone," the officer said gruffly.

"My girlfriend –" Danny said quickly, his hands in the open air where the officer could see he had no bad intentions – "My girlfriend is awake."

Confusion passed over the officer's face. Perhaps this man was insane.

"She's awake," Danny said, beginning to laugh, "she woke up."

The officer blinked. "I'm going to need some ID, sir," he said gently.

"You don't understand!" Danny shouted, barely able to contain the happiness from his voice, "She woke up! Call Detective Flack. He'll tell you. I have to go – she needs me and I have to go!"

"Sir, I need you to calm down," the officer said slowly, backing away from Danny, "Calm down and hand me your ID, very slowly."

* * *

"Are you _insane_?" Flack roared at the officer standing sheepishly by a handcuffed, anxious Danny. "This is Detective Messer! Just like it says on his badge! You'd better have a _damn_ good reason for stopping him from talking to his girlfriend for the first time in nine goddamn weeks!"

The officer cleared his throat and hesitated.

"Not fucking good enough!" Flack bellowed. He snatched the keys from the officer's hand and unlocked the handcuffs on Danny's wrists.

"He seemed to be in an altered state …" the officer weakly presented as his defense.

"It's called happiness!" Flack barked, dragging a jittery Danny to his patrol car. "Stay here and watch the man's bike. Just … stay here!"

He opened the door to his squad car, shoved Danny in, and hurried to the driver's side.

* * *

Flack took a deep breath as he and Danny entered the hospital. He hated the place. He'd been able to suck up his hate of hospitals for a few scattered visits to Lindsay over the past couple of months, although they'd been short and nearly pointless. What was there to say to a woman who was in a coma? Flack couldn't muster up anything besides a murmured, "We miss you. Get well soon." He left each time feeling as though he'd let someone down, although he wasn't sure whom. Danny, however, was an expert in coma visitation.

And it wasn't as though Danny knew the happier side of a lasting coma. Louie, after a three month coma, had died three years earlier. And now Lindsay, whose condition had ceased to change for better or worse after the second week. If only Flack had the effortless patience that Danny had: the ability to sit beside a hospital bed for nearly twelve hours on end, each second bringing Lindsay closer to either death or renewed life.

"You, ah, excited to see her?" Flack asked nervously as the two entered the elevator.

Danny slapped the button for Lindsay's floor and cracked his knuckles nervously. "'Course," he said, "But, I mean, I doubt she'll be up for much. She's probably just gonna wanna rest…"

"Aw, c'mon Danno. She'll want to see you; talk to you," Flack assured his friend.

"I dunno, man," Danny muttered. In fact, he was terrified to see Lindsay. He had had a nightmare about it the first week of her coma. In the dream, she'd awoken and had refused to see him, blaming him for his broken promise to protect her.

Danny glanced down at his bedraggled clothes and attempted to fix them to some extent. After the rain had drenched his clothes, they seemed to have dried in a wrinkled, haphazard way. He smoothed down his blue oxford shirt and tried to shake off some of the mud from his jeans.

The doors slid open with a ping, and Danny and Flack stepped onto the floor.

"GET OFF OF ME!" a voice echoed down the hallway, screeching along the white walls.

Danny was sprinting before he knew what had come over him, recognizing the voice immediately.

* * *

**I know, I know. I promised no cliffhangers. Oopsies :P**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry, guys, I've been busy lately ... Here's the next bit. Thanks to anonymous reviewers!

* * *

**

Danny had his gun out by the time he was two feet away from the hospital room. He slammed open the door to meet a wide-eyed, frozen group of assorted doctors and nurses trying to restrain a sweating, crying, screaming Lindsay.

"No no no let _GO _of me! Let go let go get me OUT!" Lindsay shrieked, breaking off the grip one of the nurses had on her arm. She sluggishly pushed her way out of bed and promptly collapsed onto the floor of the hospital.

The frozen medical staff let out a breath collectively as Danny lowered his gun and rushed forwards to help Lindsay.

Lindsay looked up at Danny with a slow, sloth-like quality, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth in a weak pout, expression listless. "You weren' here ... you weren'," she murmured, her eyes flickering.

"I know," Danny whispered, lifting her off of the floor and, with the help of one of the nurses, easing her back into the bed.

The doctor leaned in towards one of the nurses and muttered something. The nurse nodded and left, signaling two of the others to follow him. The doctor met Danny's gaze and cleared her throat.

"We don't want to upset her any more than is necessary," the doctor explained. She tucked a graying piece of hair behind her ear and stared solemnly down at Lindsay.

"Wa's going on?" Lindsay asked, her words slurring into each other in a lazy, rushed effort to get out of her mouth.

Danny's eyes filled with tears at the lost, pitifully hurt tone to her voice. "It's OK, baby," he said calmly. He noticed that her right hand was clutching weakly at his leather jacket. He left it at the hospital when he wasn't there, just in case.

Danny turned to the doctor. "Do you need to, ah, do anything? Right now, I mean? Or can I have a few minutes with her alone?"

Dr. Matthews glanced from the tiredly fearful Lindsay to Danny, then back again, and nodded. "You can have a few minutes. We'd just like to run some tests and measure her abilities."

Danny nodded and watched as Dr. Matthews quietly fixed the IV in Lindsay's arm, smiled comfortingly at her, and left the room.

Don, who was standing at the door, gave a comforting wave to Lindsay, left the room, and closed the door, leaving Danny and Lindsay in silence.

With a heavy sigh that was more in relief than anything else, Danny sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Hi, Montana," Danny said gently.

"What's going on?" Lindsay asked meekly.

Danny reached out and placed his hand on her head. He smoothed down her hair, tucking it behind her ear and letting his fingernails lightly, gently stroke her scalp. "You woke up," he said in explanation.

"I know," Lindsay murmured. She was barely able to maintain any other way of speaking. Her screams had been an adrenaline rush, taxing to her throat and painful to her head. It felt as though the muscles in her face were limp and weak. The lights were too bright. Her mind was stronger than her body, and she felt as though she were moving through jello in a bizarre alternate universe.

"What happened?" Lindsay asked fearfully, "What happened to me?"

Danny took a deep breath. "Baby you gotta promise me something first. Just tell me that you get that it's all going to be OK. I'm gonna take care of everything, and we'll all get you whatever you need – the team, the doctors, and me. You don't gotta worry about anything."

"I promise," Lindsay said wearily, anxiously.

"Everything's going to be OK," Danny said. He bent forwards and kissed her forehead, squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed in her scent. He reluctantly pulled away. "What's the last thing you remember?" he asked.

Lindsay forced her mind to sift through the jumbled, cluttered mess in her head. "We were at home," she said slowly, "I was coughing … I was dizzy in the bathroom and I f-" her voice faltered and caught on the last word. Using only breath, she managed to mouth to Danny, _It hurts to talk._

Danny nodded. "Then you don't have to, OK?" he soothed. He bit his lip. "So, you were dizzy in the bathroom, and you fell. Do you remember that?" he asked.

Lindsay nodded.

"And you don't remember anything after that?" Danny asked.

Lindsay shook her head weakly.

"That's OK, baby, that's fine." Danny tried to form the words in his head before he said them, trying to figure out a way to soften the blow. "The thing is, Mont- Lindsay, that was two months ago. You fell in the bathroom a while ago. You've been … uh … resting here since then."

Lindsay didn't understand. She could hear the words coming from Danny's mouth, watched his mouth move as he said them, but none of them seemed to stick to her mind. She slowly shook her head. "... Last night, Danny. I woke up last night and you w-" her voice failed again and she attempted to force the words out of her throat. Tears sparkled in her eyes as she looked up at his concerned expression.

"Shh-shh, Linds, relax, OK?" Danny said, smoothing her hair, "It's OK. Just focus on getting better right now. I'm gonna talk to the doctor and see if she can come in and check you out. That sound good?"

Lindsay could barely muster a nod.


End file.
